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LEGO Movie 2 Box Office Opening Worse Than LEGO Batman

The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part underwhelmed at the box office during its opening weekend, posting a debut substantially lower than 2017's The LEGO Batman Movie. Back in 2014, directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller proved the doubters wrong with the original LEGO Movie, which rode waves of enthusiastically positive buzz to $469.2 million worldwide. The success of the project encouraged Warner Bros. to develop an expanded franchise based on the property, which included spinoffs LEGO Batman and LEGO Ninjago. Of course, the slate also prominently featured a direct sequel to The LEGO Movie, which opened in theaters this past Friday.

As the first high-profile animated film of 2019, expectations were quite high for LEGO Movie 2. Much like its predecessor, the sequel received strong reviews, with many praising it for its heart, humor, and important themes. With that kind of word-of-mouth, LEGO Movie 2 seemed poised to have a strong start to its commercial run. Early projections indicated it could reach as high as $55 million in its first three days, but the actual results are quite troubling.

According to Box Office Mojo, The LEGO Movie 2 earned only $34.4 million during its opening weekend. That figure is substantially below the first frames for both The LEGO Movie ($69 million) and LEGO Batman ($53 million), which sours the fact LEGO 2 easily won the box office. It led fellow newcomers What Men Want ($19 million) and Cold Pursuit ($10.8 million) on the charts.

LEGO Movie 2 underperforming like this is a rather surprising development. It didn't face much in the way of competition, with the marketplace coming off of the worst Super Bowl weekend in two decades. Several of the movies currently playing failed to make much of an impression, even including M. Night Shyamalan's Glass. Many felt the arrival of a new family film, particularly one as well-received as LEGO Movie 2, would give the box office a shot in the arm, but that didn't happen. For one reason or another, audiences were not as enamored with the LEGO Movie universe as they were before. Perhaps the five-year gap between mainline installments killed some of the demand casual viewers had for a followup. Another possibility is overexposure/franchise fatigue with the two spinoffs coming out in quick succession.

With titles like Happy Death Day 2U and Alita: Battle Angel right around the corner, there's a realistic chance LEGO Movie 2 doesn't repeat as box office champion next weekend. And with interest this low at the start, it'll quickly fade away once How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World comes out later this month. A case can now be made WB overestimated what they had when they forged ahead on a full-blown LEGO Movie shared universe and depending on how things play out from here, they may need to reconsider any future plans they're discussing. The novelty's worn off, and though LEGO Movie 2 should ultimately go down as a box office success (its budget was $99 million), this clearly isn't what the studio was hoping for.